2017 Sparkling Rosé

2017 Sparkling Rosé

Item# Sparkling

$60.00

Product Description

Our 1st vintage, estate sparkling Rosé blends the unique aromas and flavors specific to the Malibu Coast region. Enjoy inviting hues of gentle rose petals followed by splashes of pink grapefruit, watermelon and limes. This is truly an experience made by Malibu. Limited to 430 cases.

Our flagship 2017 Sparkling Rosé wine is made hands on with the methode Champenoise under the supervision of Malibu Rocky Oaks owner/CEO Howard Leight and expert sparkling winemaker Manveer Sandhu, who between them bring twenty years of winemaking and lab operation experience.
The supply of Grenache and Syrah grapes are harvested in Malibu and shipped to Healdsburg California and loaded into presses. The grapes are pressed using a gentle crémant program to release juice without over extracting tannins and harsh phenolics from the skins or seeds. During the press program, up to three press cuts are made from the separate stages of the program. These press cuts (Free run, Cuvee & Taille) are fermented separated and evaluated after fermentation is complete for blending. Perfect balance of the blend is achieved by using the right combination of the separate cuts made at the press.
After the base wine blend is made, the next step is tirage bottling. Tirage bottling is the process where sparkling base wine is bottled with a mixture of yeast, sugar and riddling agent. Crown caps are applied
at tirage and bottles are placed on their side for fermentation and aging. They are placed on their side because this allows for maximum exposure of the wine to the yeast. We typically age our wine en tirage for 12-18 months.
After aging, the tiraged bottles are prepared for riddling. Riddling is a process where we clarify the bottles by coaxing the yeast to the neck of the bottle over a period of days. Bottles are loaded into gyropalettes that are programmed to elevate and rotate bottles through dozens of steps to finally orient the bottles into a neck down position, leaving the yeast lees in the neck and resulting in crystal clear wine.
The final process of methode Champenoise is to remove the yeast lees and add a sugar liqueur. Bottles are loaded into a Chapagel, a liquid glycol bath @ -14F, to freeze the neck of the bottle, capturing the lees sediment. The crown cap is then removed and the pressure inside the bottle forces the frozen ice plug out. At this point the dosage, a sugar liqueur, is added and then bottles are corked, wire hooded and labeled.